Editorial: UConn president misguided in response to sexual assault claims

University of Connecticut President Susan Herbst listens to questions from media about the federal civil rights complaint filed Oct. 23 by seven women in Storrs, Conn. The women allege they were assaulted while attending UConn and that officials responded with deliberate indifference. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)

A former student at Wesleyan University in Middletown filed a federal lawsuit against the school in 2012 claiming it failed to protect her after a sexual assault at a fraternity’s Halloween party two years before.

The suit claimed the frat was a known “rape factory” on campus; the suit was settled in September.

Earlier this school year, Yale police received a report that a Yale student had sexually assaulted a Quinnipiac University student. A 2009 report in the Journal of American College Health found that 19 percent of undergraduate women experienced attempted or completed sexual assault since entering college.

So sexual assault on campus is by no means limited to big “party schools.” Wherever there are unsupervised teens or young adults, abundant alcohol or drugs and (in some places) a macho athletic culture, the danger of sexual assaults will be high. And the handling of such cases will be fraught with perils and complexities of the legal and public relations varieties for institutions.

Advertisement

Susan Herbst, president of the University of Connecticut, demonstrated that last week after seven current and former students said they were victims of sexual assault and filed a Title IX complaint against the school.

Their attorney Gloria Allred said, “They are simply tired of seeing women being raped and sexually assaulted at the university while the administration chose deliberate indifference.”

That fired up Herbst in defense of UConn and its policies. “The suggestion that the University of Connecticut, as an institution, would somehow be indifferent to or dismissive of any report of sexual assault is astonishingly misguided and demonstrably untrue,” she said.

Herbst said UConn did err three years ago in not notifying one student that another student (her attacker, presumably) was back on campus. Aside from that, she said, UConn has aimed a task force, website and training tools at the problem. “UConn,” she said, is a national leader when it comes to marshalling the resources needed to combat sexual violence and help victims.”

And yet, these women’s stories stand in stark contrast. Carolyn Luby said she wrote to the president last spring about the issue and when the letter went viral, she received death and rape threats. Kylie Angell, a recent grad, found police dismissive after her alleged attacker returned to campus and sat next to her in a cafeteria. Rose Richi, a junior, said she was assaulted by a male student-athlete and police didn’t believe her.

Two Republican state legislators jumped on the issue Thursday morning, saying they want public hearings to investigate policies on sexual assaults and related issues.

Herbst, a strong leader at UConn — which is in line for another $2 billion in state money as the rest of the university system struggles for funding — put her focus on the institution’s lack of blame instead of its women’s pain.

Her approach was deeply misguided and potentially deeply harmful to victims of sexual assault.

“I cannot speak to the motivations of people who have suggested” that UConn doesn’t seem to care,” she said, citing the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

We understand there are legal complexities at play. But Herbst could have — and should have — defended the university without being so dismissive of the victims.

UConn students need to feel safe on campus. They also need to know that from the top down, the university cares more about them than it does about its own image.